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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Jamiles Lartey

Obama hits campaign trail as Trump spins migrant caravan comments – as it happened

Trump speaks in west Virginia

Summary

We’re going to wind down the blog for the day, but before we go here’s what you may have missed.

  • Donald Trump and former president Barack Obama delivered very tonally different remarks today on the campaign trail for candidates in West Virginia and Florida, respectively.
  • Trump is scheduled to speak again in Indianapolis tonight, and in Montana tomorrow afternoon.
  • Trump’s recently convicted former lawyer, and increasingly disloyal one-time confidant Michael Cohen told Vanity Fair that Trump “repeatedly used racist language before his presidency”.
  • The US added 250,000 new jobs in October – well ahead of the 188,000 Wall Street had been expecting. That’s good news for Trump and the GOP.
  • The Trump administration announced it would be restoring sanctions against Iran and Trump marked the news, which will imperil the health of many in that country, with a parody image invoking the HBO show Game of Thrones.
  • The Nigerian army, accused of killing 45 demonstrators earlier this week during what Amnesty International called “peaceful protests”, seized on Trump’s remarks about migrants yesterday in defense of its actions. It later deleted the relevant tweet.

We’ll have continuing midterm coverage all weekend – thanks for reading!

Updated

Earlier this afternoon Trump tweeted a photoshopped image of himself with the slogan “Sanctions are coming”. The tweet used typography from the HBO series Game of Thrones, playing on the show’s repeated refrain “Winter is coming”.

Stars of the show have started to respond. Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark on the series, tweeted a snarky “Not today” in response. Her co-star and on-screen sister Sophie Turner simply said: “Ew.”

HBO has requested that their imagery “not be misappropriated for political purposes”. In a tweet from their official account, they joked: “How do you say trademark misuse in Dothraki?”

Updated

Bloomberg has this wrap-up of candidates twisting and bending their positions, and taking unexpected shots and opponents, at the eve of the election.

“The attempted role reversals in this campaign are just bonkers,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California. “Kind of like Bonnie and Clyde portraying themselves as champions of bank security.”

There’s the Republican candidate arguing that his Democratic opponent won’t stand up to President Donald Trump. An ad by the party aligned with the fossil fuel industry tells voters that a candidate of the party that’s antagonistic to coal is weak on climate change. A Democrat promises to back tougher immigration enforcement while several Republicans depict themselves as defenders of Obamacare rules.

Scrapping for every vote in intensely competitive races, candidates are shading, twisting and recasting their own records and those of their opponents, aligning with causes popular in their district or state and distancing themselves from stances that aren’t. It’s a common tactic for candidates, but it’s reached unusual levels this year.

Updated

Law enforcement officials intercepted a second suspicious package addressed to California billionaire Tom Steyer Thursday at a mailing facility in Burlingame just south of San Francisco.

Authorities said the latest package appeared to be of the same variety as the more than one dozen packages sent to prominent Democratic politicians, funders and celebrities in recent weeks culminating with the arrest of Cesar Sayoc.

Politco has this dispatch from midwestern soybean country, where despite the fact that his tariffs are hurting their wallets, farmers are still behind Trump.

Sitting atop his combine harvester on a clear fall day, Garrett Hawkins can add up just how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs are hitting his bottom line, from the lower price he’ll get for his soybean crop to the steeper prices he’ll pay for metal grain bins and other equipment.

But like many of his fellow farmers in southern Illinois’ sprawling 12th congressional district, Hawkins, 37, is still planning to vote Republican on election day.

Democrats pinpointed the district this year as one of their most likely opportunities to pick up a House seat, betting, in part, that farmers would abandon the GOP as Trump’s global trade war hits the Midwest. The district went for Obama in 2012, though Trump carried it by 15 points in 2016. But the race is turning into a showcase for how that economic argument alone may not be enough to prevail among voters, even in swing districts.

After running neck-and-neck with his Democratic challenger for months, incumbent Mike Bost began to pull ahead after the divisive September Senate hearings to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court.

There’s a disconnect between the negative effect of Trump’s policies on his voters in farm country and their unwavering support for him. That could limit the size of the Democratic majority widely expected to take control of the House next year and give Trump cover to prolong his aggressive moves against US trading partners.

Updated

The Toronto Star’s Washington correspondent Daniel Dale is usually a live fact checking machine anytime Trump is speaking and today in West Virginia is no different.

Parkland students prepare for their first election day

From the Associated Press:

Nine months after 17 classmates and teachers were gunned down at their Florida school, Parkland students are finally facing the moment they’ve been leading up to with marches, school walkouts and voter-registration events throughout the country: their first election day.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school student activists set their sights on the 4 million US citizens turning 18 this year. They’re hoping to counteract the voter apathy that’s especially prevalent among the youth during midterm elections. Many of the activists, now household names like David Hogg, postponed college plans to mobilize young voters. Many of them support gun reform, in the name of their fallen classmates.

Jaclyn Corin, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Noami Wadler speak during March For Our Lives on 24 March, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Jaclyn Corin, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Noami Wadler speak during March For Our Lives on 24 March in Washington DC. Photograph: Noam Galai/WireImage

“It is kind of the culmination of everything we’ve been working for,” said senior Jaclyn Corin, one of the founders of the March for Our Lives group. “This is truly the moment that young people are going to make the difference in this country.”
Corin, who voted along with her dad at an early polling site on her 18th birthday, visited a half-dozen cities in just a handful of days last week, getting up at 3am to board planes.

It has been a whirlwind for the students, with celebrity support from Oprah Winfrey to Kim Kardashian, a Time magazine cover, late night TV spots and book deals but all of it misses their main target unless it motivates students to cast ballots by the end of Tuesday.

At a University of Central Florida event during the final week of election campaigning, Stoneman Douglas graduate and current UCF student Bradley Thornton escorted fellow students to the campus’ early voting site. UCF student Tiffany McKelton said she wouldn’t have voted if the Parkland activists hadn’t shown up on campus.

“I’ve never voted in a primary election. I actually did it because of them,” said McKelton, a psychology major from West Palm Beach.

Updated

In West Virginia Trump concedes Democrats might win control of the house and says the ensuing political battle “will be ridiculous frankly, it will be bad for our country”.

Updated

'Bring it home': Obama makes closing argument for Democrats in Florida

Former president Barack Obama was in Florida stumping for gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum Friday afternoon, serving up a buffet of the kind of aspirational “hopey, changey” rhetoric that put him on the political map in 2004 and won him the White House in 2008.

“We have seen rhetoric designed to divide us,” Obama said. “In four days, you can be a check on that kind of behavior.”

Obama’s speech broadly embraced themes of inclusivity and social justice. “You can choose a more generous vision of America ... where love and hope conquer hate,” he said, sounding almost anachronistic in the Trump-era.

Obama also spoke more directly to the GOP and Trump specifically with remarks such as these:

  • “When truth doesn’t matter, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy can’t work ... And that’s what’s happening at the highest levels. And the only check on that behavior is you. The only check on that behavior is you and your vote.”
  • “They’re telling you the existential threat to America is a bunch of poor refugees 1,000 miles away. They’re even taking our brave troops away from their families for a political stunt at the border. The men and women of our military deserve better than that.”
  • “Suddenly Republicans are saying they’re gonna protect your pre-existing conditions when they’ve literally been doing the opposite. That’s some kind of gall. That’s some kind of chutzpah. Let’s call it what it is: it’s a lie. They’re lying to you.”

Updated

From Reuters:

Twitter deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts posting messages that discouraged people from voting in Tuesday’s US election and wrongly appeared to be from Democrats, after the party flagged the misleading tweets to the social media company.

“We took action on relevant accounts and activity on Twitter,” Twitter spokesman Ian Plunkett said in an email. The removals took place in late September and early October

Updated

Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state congresswoman, is one of hundreds of Democrats now running on single-payer healthcare, a monumental shift to the left for the party which – even when it controlled Congress and the White House in 2009 – passed a health policy overhaul which buttressed the private insurance system for almost a decade – Obamacare.

“We did a poll in swing districts,” said Jayapal, “The numbers were off the charts.” Not only did the Pac’s survey find liberals supported Medicare for All, she said, but “independents responded incredibly well.”

A recent survey by the union National Nurses United found 225 Democratic candidates in the House running explicitly on single-payer healthcare.

“It is a very, very popular policy, and it’s popular out of necessity,” said Jayapal. “People see what we have just doesn’t work. It’s costing way too much.”

“Medicare for All” refers to the popular public health insurance program for the elderly, called Medicare. Passed in 1965 with Medicaid, its sister program for the impoverished and disabled, the single-payer program covers all Americans older than 65, and many more who are disabled.

Along with other public health insurance programs, such as for veterans, the military and Native Americans, the US already provides health insurance for nearly 100 million people, said Chris Sloan, a director at the health consulting company Avalere.

“Public opinion has shifted,” he said. “That is why [healthcare has] become more of a defensive issue for Republicans and an offensive issue for Democrats.”

Updated

Trump walked back his (illegal) suggestion that the military treat migrants who throw rocks as if they are armed with rifles on the White House south lawn today.

He also accused the media of “creating violence” by the act of asking him a question.

Updated

Democrat Andrew Gillum is bidding to become Florida’s first black governor. Ron DeSantis is a Trump-style Republican. And the topic of race has been impossible to ignore as their race pulls in to the final stretch.

Our Sabrina Siddiqui has more from the ground in Florida.

New from the Associated Press:

The supreme court says new justice Brett Kavanaugh won’t take the traditional walk down the courthouse steps after his ceremonial installation on the court because of security concerns.

Kavanaugh’s investiture ceremony is scheduled for Thursday morning in the courtroom. It is customary for a new justice to walk down the 44 marble steps in front of the building, accompanied by the chief justice. The moment provides a chance for news organizations to photograph the justice, since the courtroom event is closed to cameras.

Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Friday that the change is being made “out of an abundance of caution due to security concerns”.

Kavanaugh was confirmed 6 October by a 50-48 Senate vote following an allegation he sexually assaulted a woman decades ago. He denied any wrongdoing.

Updated

Donald Trump famously said that if he were to stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone on he still wouldn’t lose any votes.

Well, it turns out that Teflon status doesn’t quite extend to his leading impersonator, Alec Baldwin. After allegedly punching a man over a parking spot in New York on Friday Baldwin didn’t lose any votes of course – but he was arrested.

Updated

Trump, according to Michael Cohen: 'Black people are too stupid to vote for me'

File this one under: “Too little too late” and “Tell us something we don’t know!”

Donald Trump’s recently convicted former lawyer, and increasingly disloyal one-time confidant Michael Cohen told Vanity Fair that Trump “repeatedly used racist language before his presidency”.

Some of the highlights (lowlights)?

  • “[Trump] said to me: ‘Name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole,’ and then he added: ‘Name one city,’” Cohen recalled, a statement that echoed the president’s alleged comments about African nations earlier this year.
  • “I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla on television. Trump responded: ‘That’s because black people are too stupid to vote for me.’”
  • “We were going from the airport to the hotel, and we drove through what looked like a rougher neighborhood. Trump made a comment to me, saying that only the blacks could live like this.”
  • Regarding a contestant on his show The Apprentice: “He said: ‘There’s no way I can let this black f-g win.’”

Updated

Donald Trump’s effort to thwart a lawsuit against him over possible violations of the emoluments clause of the constitution was quashed by a federal judge Friday. Suit will continue.

Trump's playful tweet belies serious nature of reinstating sanctions on Iran

Reacting to Trump’s playful tweet about reinstating sanctions on Iran, Ahmad Ghavideh, the head of Iran’s hemophilia society, which is an NGO, told the Guardian by phone from Tehran that the lives of at least 12,000 patients with bleeding disorders in Iran will be put at immediate risk when the country’s supply runs out.

We believe that sanctions are in fact worse than waging a classic war, because when you’re in the war situation at least civilian buildings, and targets are supposed to be spared, while with sanctions in this scale, a whole nation has been targeted.

There’s no doubt that the lives of thousands of patients will be at risk. Any delay in supply of medicine, particularly in the sector I work in, will have catastrophic consequences. My worry is not for today, but in six month’s time when our supply runs out. They claim that the imports of medicines are exempted from sanctions but in practice, because of banking restrictions we don’t have access to medicine or ingredients needed to make them internally.

We’ve been here before in 2012 when a 15-year-old boy in the city of Dezful died.

Women having their period and suffering from bleeding disorders who have not access to their medicine might experience 15 to 18 days bleeding in a single month. We’re not talking about a simple matter here.

Updated

Trump administration to reimpose sanctions on Iran

Senior US officials have warned that Washington will next week reimpose all sanctions on Iran that were lifted by the Obama administration after the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Donald Trump, since breaking that deal in May, has vowed to cut off Iranian oil revenue completely, and oil exporters and tankers will be among 700 companies, individuals, vessels and aircraft that will be added to a US sanctions blacklist on Monday.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said that eight “jurisdictions” would be granted temporary waivers after Monday’s sanctions deadline, but only on the understanding that they would stop or drastically reduce oil imports in the coming weeks.

Pompeo did not name the countries to be exempted, except to say that the European Union was not among them. He did not say whether individual European countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain might be granted waivers.

Trump announced the move by tweeting a parody of a poster for the HBO series Game of Thrones featuring himself.

Approval for plan to detain migrants at military bases 'imminent'

It’s full speed ahead for the Trump administration’s aggressive mobilization at the southern border. From the Daily Beast, former Guardian US reporter Spencer Ackerman has this report:

The Pentagon expects to soon receive a long-delayed formal request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to host detention facilities for thousands of migrant families, The Daily Beast has learned.

Discussions are ongoing between the two departments, already collaborating with each other on a massive military mobilization at the southern border, officials said. It’s an effort that has prompted outrage and fears of troops firing on unarmed asylum seekers. Under discussion are the terms under which two military bases in Texas, the Army’s Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base, will become detention sites for thousands of families.

Updated

Nigerian army deletes Trump tweet

Update to a story we brought you a short time ago: the Nigerian army has since deleted its tweet referencing Donald Trump’s statement about treating migrants throwing rocks as if they were armed with rifles. Nothing is ever really gone on the internet, however.

Screenshot from the Nigerian Army Twitter account.
Screenshot from the Nigerian army Twitter account. Photograph: Twitter

The army stands accused of opening fire on peaceful protesters, killing 45 earlier this week. The post seemed to be a way of using Trump’s logic to excuse the violent suppression of large masses of unarmed or minimally armed people with military-grade firepower.

Updated

Federal judge orders Georgia to let blocked voters cast ballots

Big news out of Georgia, where the secretary of state (and current gubernatorial candidate) Brian Kemp had thus far been successful in keeping 53,000 voters off rolls for minor data mismatches.

A federal judge has ruled that Kemp must guarantee that people flagged as non-citizens through Georgia’s “exact match” system can vote in the 2018 election.

Read more about Georgia’s registration exclusion policy below, which many have described as an attempt at voter suppression. 70% of those affected by the “exact match” exclusions are black Americans.

Updated

An event at a Brooklyn synagogue with Broad City actor Ilana Glazer was canceled after antisemitic graffiti including the phrase “Kill all Jews” was found on the walls Thursday night.

“I can’t put these 200 people who came to listen in a safe space ... in that danger,” Glazer told Democracy Now.

Updated

What’s a quick route to weaker unions, lower taxes or less-stringent environmental regulations? Pour some money into politics.

Political donors “get their phone calls answered”, one expert tells us today in our roundup of the most significant donors of the midterms.

Leading the pack is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who’s given $113m to conservative causes. Of course, big money in politics isn’t the preserve of Republicans. The top liberals are Thomas Steyer and Kathryn Taylor, who have funneled much of their $50.7m in donations to candidates and causes working to combat climate change.

Find out the rest of the top 20 here.

(And check out some of the other pieces in Big Money, our new series on the political and social clout of America’s ultra-rich: on what billionaires really want, the bad behavior of plutocrats, and more. )

If there is one (non-Trump) issue Democrats hammered this election season, it’s healthcare. A Thursday debate between two Ohio candidates shows why.

The Democratic challenger Danny O’Connor jabbed incumbent Republican congressman Troy Balderson, as Balderson struggled to explain why he wanted to end a government program which provides public health insurance to 653,000 Ohioans. The program, called Medicaid expansion, cut the state’s uninsured rate in half.

“We have saved $200m” in Medicaid reforms, Balderson started, before he was interrupted.

“Well, I guess that’s how much a life is worth for someone who doesn’t have healthcare,” said O’Connor. Balderson argued he was not trying to take away anyone’s health insurance – although that is exactly what an end to Medicaid expansion would do.

“If they don’t have Medicaid where are they going to go?” said O’Connor.

“That is not throwing them off their healthcare,” said Balderson. “We have federally qualified health centers in this community –”

“Well, you’ve said counties don’t even have doctors,” O’Connor interjected, and Balderson paused.

“Danny, there are counties which don’t have doctors,” Balderson said.

“... Every county in your old senate district has a doctor. All you’ve got to do is go on Google, and you’ll find it,” O’Connor said. The two men paused, before the moderator offered a reprieve.

“Let’s move on unless you have something to add, Congressman Balderson.”

“I have nothing to add,” Balderson replied.

Updated

Former Virginia Republican senator John Warner tells NBC News he is endorsing several Democrats for Congress in 2018, including Abigail Spanberger, who is challenging GOP representative Dave Brat in Virginia’s seventh congressional district.

Now is the time to rise above politics, Warner, a dean of the Virginia Republican party, told NBC News.

“It goes beyond politics now. I’m a Republican, I’ll finish a Republican as I cruise through my 91st year. But you’ve got to put the nation’s interests and the state’s interests ahead of politics,” Warner told NBC in a phone interview.

Updated

Nigerian army tweets Trump's comments after being accused of killing demonstrators

The Nigerian army, accused of killing 45 demonstrators earlier this week during what Amnesty International called “peaceful protests”, has seized on Donald Trump’s words yesterday in defense of its actions.

Trump said in remarks about the migrant caravan headed towards the US, that if the US military encounters anyone throwing rocks at personnel it should treat it as though they have rifles.

The comments related to strife between migrants and Mexican police in which rocks were thrown at authorities leaving two officers with minor injuries.

The army of Africa’s most populous country tweeted video of Trump’s remarks Friday with the caption: “Please Watch and Make your Deductions.”

As for Trump’s remarks, a number of military experts chimed in quickly to note that conflating rocks with rifles and using that as a basis for applying deadly force on migrants would be unlawful and out of accordance with rules of engagement.

Updated

Manchin's lead dwindles as Trump set to make third West Virginia trip

Reuters has this from West Virginia, where conservative Democrat Joe Manchin is in a tight battle to retain his Senate seat:

Democratic US Senator Joe Manchin’s re-election race was never going to be easy in conservative West Virginia, a state that Donald Trump carried by more than 40 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.

But two new polls this week showing Manchin’s once comfortable lead over Republican Patrick Morrisey dwindling to five percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s congressional elections have sparked concern among Democrats, although a poll in mid-October showed Manchin still holding a double-digit lead.

Senator Joe Manchin at the capitol during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
Joe Manchin at the Capitol during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Photograph: Mary Calvert/Reuters

On Friday, Trump will make his third trip to West Virginia in three months to support Morrisey against Manchin, a moderate Democrat who sometimes sides with the president. Morrisey, the state’s attorney general, touts Trump’s support in ads, and said earlier this year the president would be the “difference maker” in the Senate race.

“I know Trump coming so often is making an impact,” said Jim Hoyt, chairman of the Morgan county Democratic party in northeast West Virginia. Like other state Democrats, he still expects Manchin to win.

The Democratic Senate campaign committee has made a late television ad buy in two small markets in the state, the Republican media firm Medium Buying reported, a sign of Democratic concern.

West Virginia is one of 10 states won by Trump where Democrats are defending Senate seats. A Manchin loss on Tuesday would deal a punishing blow to already-slim Democratic hopes of picking up the net two seats they need to gain a Senate majority. Democrats are widely favored to win control of the House of Representatives.

The visit to West Virginia on Friday, part of an 11-rally blitz across eight states in the final run-up to Tuesday’s voting, is aimed at turning out his core supporters in a state where Trump’s approval ratings are well above 50%.

Updated

Trump has tweeted this image of himself on a faux-poster styled after the HBO series Game of Thrones, presumably to announce the reinstatement of sanctions against Iran reported a short time ago.

HBO’s response:

Updated

If the Democrats win control of either chamber of Congress they plan to use an obscure law to pressure Trump into releasing his tax returns, reports the New York Times.

Updated

It’s the climate, stupid. At least until we win

A Climate Nexus review of 50 competitive congressional races shows “nearly two dozen where climate or clean energy is part of candidates’ closing arguments in the final month before the election”.

In the competitive and potentially pivotal races in Michigan 8th, California 48th and New York 1st Districts, for example, candidates Elissa Slotkin, Harley Roudaand Perry Gershonare running on messages that specifically attack their opponents’ records on climate change. In some swing districts, particularly those where Republicans running in districts where Hillary Rodham Clinton won in 2016, climate change has become a threshold issue for candidates in both parties.

In these districts, the candidates may agree on the need to tackle climate change and move towards renewable energy sources even when they agree on little else.

Meanwhile, as we reported yesterday, Democrats don’t have a plan to address climate change comprehensively – or even to a significant degree – if they regain control of the government in the near future.

Updated

Trump effectively revokes 2015 Iran nuclear deal

This is a developing story, check back soon for more.

The New York Times has a bit of context today on the xenophobic, factually inaccurate immigration focused campaign ad tweeted by President Trump on Wednesday:

Two people close to Mr. Trump declined to say whether it was made by the White House video unit or someone on the campaign. But one White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that it had been in the works for several days, and was released on Wednesday in an effort to change the focus of cable television from the pipe bombs and the Pittsburgh killing.

The ad heavily featuring convicted cop killer Luis Bracamontes, a twice-deported illegal immigrant who killed two Sacramento-area deputies in a 2014 rampage.

The president’s central claim in the ad, that “Democrats let him into our country” and that “Democrats let him stay” is in fact, demonstrably false the Sacramento Bee notes.

Bracamontes, who is now on death row at San Quentin State Prison was first deported from the US in 1997 when Bill Clinton was president.

Records in Arizona show he was arrested on drug charges again in Phoenix in 1998, then released “for reasons unknown” by the Maricopa County Sheriff office of Joe Arpaio- a Republican and major Trump booster.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Bracamontes was next arrested May 4, 2001, on marijuana charges in Maricopa County, and deported three days later. Republican George W. Bush was president at the time, and was president when Bracamontes slipped back into the United States a short time later.

The date of his re-entry is not clear, but records show Bracamontes was married in Maricopa County on Feb. 28, 2002, when Bush was president.

Arpaio, it should be noted- the first person to approve Bracamontes’ release in the US- was the recipient of Trump’s very first presidential pardon.

Updated

The Kansas City Star has endorsed Democrat Laura Kelly in a tightly contested race for the Kansas governorship.

The paper’s editorial board said the election of Republican Kris Kobach, currently the Kansas Secretary of State, “would be an inexplicable step backwards”.

It’s no exaggeration to say a Kobach governorship would give Kansas a distinctly Trumpian flavor. The Republican secretary of state has borrowed liberally from the president’s playbook, sowing division and using dubious claims to fan unfounded fears.”

The state is historically one of the safest Republican enclaves in the US, but polls have Kobach and Kelly in a statistical dead heat.

Trump ramps up falsehoods by a factor of six in lead-up to midterms, according to a Washington Post analysis.

“In the first nine months of his presidency, Trump made 1,318 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day,” the Post found, “but in the seven weeks leading up the midterm elections, the president made 1,419 false or misleading claims — an average of 30 a day.”

Updated

Poll: Democrats’ top priority for next Congress: investigate and impeach Trump

From the Daily Beast:

More Democrats say they want to investigate and potentially impeach Donald Trump once the next Congress convenes than pursue fixes to the nation’s healthcare system, according to a new public opinion poll.

Updated

Check out these impressive early voting turnout numbers from Texas where more votes have already been cast during early voting than in the entire 2014 midterm including election day.

In addition, in 22 states and Washington DC, early voting numbers have surpassed those from the 2014.

After a new voter ID law threatened to block thousands of Native Americans from the ballot, activists have rolled out an impressive push to get tribal residents the required documentation.

According to NBC News, “at least 1,360 people have gotten new IDs since the law was changed, according to tribal officials across the state, amid a major get-out-the-vote effort across North Dakota’s five reservations ahead of Election Day.”

Late yesterday a federal judge said allegations of voter suppression against Native Americans were “great cause for concern,’ but he denied a request to rollback the new election laws to avoid “confusion and chaos”. The law requires voters to have an ID with a street address, which a number of tribal members in the very rural state do not have, instead receiving mail to a post office box.

Read more:

Updated

There was good news for Trump heading into next week’s elections. The US added 250,000 new jobs in October – well ahead of the 188,000 Wall Street had been expecting. The unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7%, a low unseen since the Vietnam war.

Wage growth has been slow since the end of the recession but does – finally – appear to be picking up. Wages were up 3.1% compared to last year, the first time they have risen above 3% since 2009.

Updated

Trump in Missouri: 'Two maniacs' stopped GOP momentum

Good morning and welcome to the politics blog for 2 November. There’s just four days until the all-important 6 November midterms.

Donald Trump continued his busy rally schedule last night in Missouri, and seemed to pre-emptively lay any Republican midterm losses on the bombing scare and synagogue attacks carried out by rightwing ideologues in recent weeks.

The president said:

We did have two maniacs stop a momentum that was incredible, because for seven days nobody talked about the elections,” he said at the rally Thursday. “It stopped a tremendous momentum.” He added: “More importantly, we have to take care of our people, and we don’t care about momentum when it comes to a disgrace like just happened to our country.

“But it did nevertheless stop a certain momentum, and now the momentum is picking up.”

Trump continued his hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric Thursday night, which has been a cornerstone of the GOP midterm messaging. This included a blatantly false claim about so-called “chain migration” debunked by the New York Times.

First Trump said:

Birthright citizens, in turn, can then bring their entire extended family into our country through chain migration. That’s another beauty. Chain migration. You come into the country, you’re, like, two months old and you’re going to take your brother, and your sister and your mother and your father. You’re going to bring them all.”

From the New York Times:

This is impossible. American citizens must be at least 21 before they are eligible to petition for their parents to live in the United States, and there is a long queue for family-sponsored immigration, or what the president labels chain migration.

After a petition is filed and approved, would-be immigrants are given a so-called priority date and can apply for a green card only when the state department calls it up. For example, this month, brothers and sisters of adult American citizens can begin to apply for a green card if their priority dates were before March 22, 2005 – a waiting period of more than 13 years.

Updated

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